The Gray Man Concept
The Art of Blending In
Introduction
I used to fear being abandoned and forgotten. Now I fear being remembered and found.
Thousands of books promise to teach you how to become successful and wealthy: build a personal brand, project the right image on social media, develop charisma and leadership skills, climb the hierarchy, stand out from the crowd, attract as much attention as possible, and hold it for as long as you can.
This book teaches the exact opposite.
When the Ukrainian Krav Maga Federation was preparing its first seminar and workshop on the Gray Man concept—eight speakers, more than 150 participants, and a program we have since repeated three times—one client objected: “I don’t like the name. I’m not gray, and I don’t want to be.”
We all want to accomplish something with our lives, fulfill our potential, and achieve what, for lack of a better word, we call success. No one wants to disappear into a faceless mass. Yet the closer we get to our goals, the more likely we are to encounter conflict—or become a target for someone who emerged from that very crowd.
The Gray Man concept teaches you how to temporarily—and I emphasize temporarily—shed the outward signs that set you apart, when doing so is necessary for your personal safety.
This book is about avoiding trouble before it begins.
It covers:
· the history of the Gray Man concept and why it matters;
· profiling and anti-profiling;
· nonverbal cues;
· urban camouflage;
· Gray Man equipment and skills;
· physical surveillance;
· kidnapping;
· travel safety in developing countries;
· living with a minimal digital footprint;
· social engineering techniques—and how to defend yourself against them.
Along the way, we will answer the following questions:
· How can you become effectively invisible?
· How can you blend into a crowd?
· How can you avoid unwanted attention?
· How can you keep people from noticing you—or make them forget you as soon as they do?
· How can you manipulate another person’s perception?
· How can you tell whether you are being followed, and what can you do about it?
· How can you reduce the risk of kidnapping and escape if you are taken?
· How can you stay safe abroad?
· How can you avoid leaving unnecessary traces online?
· How do people manipulate others, and how can you keep them from manipulating you?
My name is Anton Farb, and I am a self-defense instructor. In 2006, my wife, Svetlana Mikhalchuk, and I founded the Ukrainian Krav Maga Federation. Since then, I have taught more than 700 seminars and approximately 4,000 regular training sessions. My students number in the thousands. Since 2017, we have run eight instructor courses, I have certified 60 instructors, and our affiliated schools have operated in Moldova, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, and Germany.
Early in my career, I assumed our clients would mainly be people interested in shooting, survival, and extreme sports.
Reality proved far more interesting. Our audiences included college students and homemakers, IT specialists and entrepreneurs, actors and artists, police officers and soldiers, teenagers and mothers of large families, freelancers and bankers. Every group was remarkably diverse. Maslow was right about one thing: security is a fundamental human need.
Self-defense, like personal hygiene, is for everyone.
In 2020, I published Be Your Own Bodyguard, a detailed examination of the theory behind self-defense. Readers of that book will know that personal safety begins with four simple truths:
· I live in a dangerous world;
· some people in this world are capable of terrible things;
· something bad could happen to me today;
· I am responsible for my safety and the safety of those I love.
Together, these four truths form a mindset.
Upon that foundation we add knowledge about threats and how to avoid them, practical skills for dealing with threats, and equipment that makes those skills easier to apply.
The result looks like this:
The Personal Safety Pyramid
When people begin thinking about personal safety, they usually start at the top of the pyramid—with equipment. No matter what I discuss at a seminar—situational awareness, Cooper’s Color Code, Boyd’s OODA loop, MacLean’s triune brain model, profiling, or paralinguistics—someone always asks, “Which pepper spray do you recommend?”
It hardly matters. You still may not be able to use it effectively until you change your mindset, acquire the necessary knowledge, and develop reliable skills.
If you approach personal safety systematically and build the house from the foundation rather than the roof, something interesting happens.
Over time, every one of our students changes—inside and out.
Consider a simple example. Before leaving home, almost every woman looks in the mirror, time permitting. She asks herself: Do I look good? Are my clothes and hair in order? Am I ready to go out?
Men do the same thing, by the way; we simply do not admit it.
People who train in self-defense add a few more questions:
Can I run or fight comfortably in these clothes? Can I reach my flashlight or pepper spray quickly? Is my holster properly concealed? Did I remember my first-aid kit?
Soon the skinny jeans give way to tactical pants with a dozen pockets. An urban EDC backpack appears. A folding-knife clip or an oddly placed lanyard peeks out here and there. Jacket pockets grow heavy, and metal objects begin to clink inside them.
People who train in self-defense can spot one another a block away. As the saying goes, it takes one to know one.
Watching a hipster evolve into a tactical enthusiast can be amusing.
Even more amusing are the wannabes: people who imitate the outward trappings of the tactical world without the mindset, knowledge, or skills behind them. They want to look the part, but they have spent so much on fashionable clothing and gear that they cannot afford to train.
Police officers and criminals alike have become very good at recognizing the tactical look.
And trying to pass through airport security dressed that way is considerably less amusing.
That is where the Gray Man concept comes in: prepare for the unexpected without advertising that preparation; avoid intimidating a potential opponent and escape his attention instead; do not stand out from the crowd—disappear into it.
The Gray Man is, of course, a system of knowledge, skills, and equipment. We will examine all three in this book.
It is also a different way of thinking.
What is the difference between an intelligent person and a wise one?
An intelligent person can escape a situation that a wise person would never have entered.
Fighting and shooting skills matter less than the ability to avoid situations in which you might need them.
The best fight is the one that never happens.
Chapter 1. The History of the Gray Man Concept—and Why It MattersThe capacity for survival is nothing but the capacity for boundless suspicion.
John Le Carré
The Moscow Rules
At the International Espionage Museum in Washington, DC, among the many World War II and Cold War exhibits — miniature cameras, encryption machines, radio transmitters, and cyanide fountain pens — is a small metal plaque engraved with text entitled "Moscow Rules."
This is an unwritten set of rules of conduct for CIA and MI6 agents operating in Moscow during the Cold War.
Here they are:
1. Assume nothing.
2. Never go against your gut.
3. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
4. Do not look back; you are never completely alone.
5. Go with the flow, blend in.
6. Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
7. Lull them into a sense of complacency.
8. Do not harass the opposition.
9. Pick the time and place for action.
10. Keep your options open.
Over the years undercover, the spy community has expanded the list to include the aphoristic “Murphy was right” and “Don't draw attention, not even by being overly cautious,” and even a quote from Ian Fleming: “It's just an accident once. Two times could be a coincidence. Three times — these are the actions of the enemy. "
Over the years, there have been more aphoristic rules. "Red teams" — the units responsible for the "potential enemy" in the educational process of intelligence and counterintelligence officers, have developed a set of 72 rules, the full translation of which can be found in the Addendum at the end of the book.
Of course, spies are the second oldest profession in this world, and the idea of “not standing out from the crowd” was born around the same time when Joshua sent “two spies in secret” to Jericho (Book of Joshua, 2: 1), to a safe house harlots Rahab — but officially the concept of the "Gray Man" traces its lineage from the "Moscow Rules".
Since March 5, 1945, since the famous Fulton speech of Winston Churchill, which marked the beginning of the Cold War, there was no country more dangerous and unfriendly for American intelligence than the USSR.
Already in the summer of 1945, Soviet pioneers presented American Ambassador Harriman with a wooden panel depicting the Great Seal of the United States. The panel hung in the ambassador's office until 1952, when hidden microphones were discovered in it. Since then, any activity of American diplomats and spies has been under the constant control of the KGB. The apogee of electronic espionage was the construction in 1975 of a new US embassy building, where microphones were integrated into concrete under the guise of construction waste — in fact, the whole building was one giant "bug".
Imagine that you are in hostile territory. In a totalitarian state. Every step you take is being watched. Everyone you meet can be an agent of the special services. You can be grabbed and thrown behind bars without the slightest excuse, without formal charges.
You will have to come up with safety rules for behaving in such an environment. And many of these rules were written in blood.
Including the need to “blend in with the crowd” and be a “Gray Man”.
But why do we need them?
We're not spies. The state does not follow us (hmm …) We abide by laws and respect law enforcement agencies (hmm …)
Why do we ordinary people need the concept of "Gray Man"?
Ordinary people don't need it. If you, of course, consider yourself as such. I don't consider myself. And you?
Ordinary people live according to the concept of the "Gray Man" — and without knowing it! — all their (conditionally) conscious life. They don't attract curiosity. Nobody cares. Nobody pays attention to them. They are not remembered, and even when they see them, they are instantly forgotten.
As in that joke:
- And this is cowboy Elusive Joe.
- And why is his name Elusive Joe?
- Because no one has caught him yet.
- Why hasn't anyone caught him yet?
- Because nobody needs him.
Ordinary people don't blend in with the crowd. They form it.
But the moment you stop being a “common man” and start to stand out from the crowd, attract the attention of criminals, law enforcers (which in countries with a high level of corruption acquire a level of similarity with criminals “to the point of confusion”) and simply aggressive personalities — the ability to "merge, dissolve and disappear" can be as important as "Moscow Rules" for a CIA agent or the ability of a chameleon to change colors.
The concept of "Gray Man" is not about how to be "gray", but about how to appear as such — when it is necessary.
When Do You Need the Gray Man Concept?
Everyday Life
Before filming Collateral (2004), director Michael Mann gave lead actor Tom Cruise an unusual assignment. Tom Cruise was supposed to play a hitman in the film, whose ability was to blend in with the crowd and go unnoticed. In preparation for the role, the director asked the actor to work as a courier for the delivery service.
Tom Cruise is a world movie star. His face is known to billions of people. Alone. No security. Delivered packages, scanned barcodes, asked to sign here. Drank coffee with strangers at the mall.
And nobody recognized him.
Well, okay, he's an actor, his profession is supposed to be able to pretend to be another person.
Why do we need this?
The main goal of self-defense is to come home safe. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve a number of tasks, such as: develop your situational awareness and skills to recognize threats, verbal methods of de-escalation of conflicts, be in good physical shape, carry weapons and be able to use them, master basic techniques of hand-to-hand combat and learn to provide first aid.
Becoming invisible when necessary is one of the tasks of self-defense.
You will not be attacked if you are not seen.
In the context of criminal attacks, all threats to personal security can be divided into two categories: spontaneous conflict and planned attack (more on this in the book "Be Your Own Bodyguard").
Spontaneous conflict is essentially a ritual duel for a place in the hierarchy.
The more formidable you look — in military style clothes, with a gun bag over your shoulder and brutal Velcro patches — the more tempting it is to challenge you. As part of a duel, it is much more prestigious to defeat a strong opponent than to deal with a "gray man", in the victory over whom there is no honor and valor.
One friend of mine only due to its impressive dimensions — under two meters in height, a hundred kilos in weight — regularly becomes an object of provocations and a participant in conflicts, although he has a very peaceful disposition, like most strong people.
The more impressive the prey, the more honorable the trophy is for someone who feels disenfranchised and lowered in the hierarchy just because you look harsher than him.
(A little later we will talk about how a person of extraordinary size can become a "Gray").
A planned attack is an act of hunting, where the victim acts as a source of resources. The reasons for the attack are money, body, and life.
Being a "Gray Man" doesn't mean looking weak.
The choice of the victim of the attack is carried out according to two criteria:
- what can you get from it?
and
- how difficult will it be to do it?
Demonstration of wealth where it is unnecessary — a child's diamond earrings, an expensive phone on a piblic bus, a gold Rolex when traveling to Mexico and a large amount of cash in a wallet at a supermarket checkout — can be a decisive factor in the process of choosing you as a victim.
A textbook example from the American self-defense expert Tony Blauer. You go to the ATM. Several suspicious men are milling about. Instead of taking out a knife-pepper spray-flashlight-gun, you simply press the "Cancel" button, and irritably mutter "Again the salary is delayed!"
That's it, your value as a victim has dropped to zero. There is nothing to take from you.
The second criterion is a little more complicated. Criminals choose a weak victim in a crowd that is not able to actively resist on the basis of nonverbal cues. The body language of a potential victim is a slightly slowed-down step, a lowered head. Bonus: headphones, hood, telephone.
Being a "Gray Man" is no different from the behavior of people in a crowd. Move in the same rhythm, but not lose control of the environment.
And even if for some reason you are chosen as a victim, during the pursuit phase, the skills of the "Gray Man" will give you the opportunity to break away from the surveillance and disappear out of the blue. This is not difficult.
Of course, I am not calling to be a "Gray Man" twenty-four hours a day — you are not a spy on enemy territory. But if you know that you have to find yourself in an area of a city with a high crime rate, and even at that time of day when the probability of an attack is high, putting on a "gray" mask is just as logical as grabbing an umbrella if the forecast promises rain.
In the book "Be Your Own Bodyguard", in the section "My home is my fortress" I wrote that the means of protection of the home are divided into active and passive. Active ones — guards, weapons, fire extinguishers — do not work without human intervention. Passive ones (fence, bars, locks, dog) — on the contrary.
So personal self-defense equipment can be conditionally divided into active (pepper spray, knife, pistol), and passive (body armor).
The Gray Man concept is a form of passive protection. Like body armor, it should be used when needed—not worn for its own sake.
Civil Unrest
On July 13, 1977, lightning struck a power plant near New York City. A few minutes later, a second strike hit two high-voltage transmission lines. The system overloaded, emergency generators failed to start remotely, and within 50 minutes almost all of New York was in darkness. The famous 1977 blackout had begun.
Over the next day, the city was swept by a wave of looting. According to various estimates, about 100 thousand people were engaged in looting and arsons. 3800 criminals were arrested, but they had to be released — the courts did not cope with the work, and the prisons were overcrowded. The total damage from the 1977 Blackout was, according to various sources, from three hundred million to one billion dollars.
Fun fact: Blackout was the origin of hip-hop music. If before that talented African-American musicians did not have money for expensive equipment, then there was an opportunity to steal it.
Exactly one day later, the power supply was restored, as well as order in the city.
Forty-four years later, on May 25, 2020, repeatedly convicted repeat offender Floyd George was killed (or died of drug overdose and heart disease) while resisting to arrest.
A wave of protests and riots under the slogan Black Lives Matter swept the United States. From May 26 to August 22, more than 7,750 protest actions took place in 49 cities. The total damage has not yet been calculated.
How did Blackout 1977 differ fundamentally from BLM-2020?
Information technology.
In 1977, the start of the robberies was triggered by a power outage (as in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans suffered from a wave of looting).
In 2020 — hashtag on Twitter.
If in the pre-Internet era the organization of protest actions took days and weeks, and the fastest ways of communication were telephone and telegraph, then after the invention of the concept of “flash mob” in 2004, an “instant crowd” appears. She is, according to the definition of the sociologist Harold Reynolds, “an intelligent crowd capable of self-organization” — mass actions, including violent ones, begin within a few hours.
In 1977, Blackout was an incredible, extraordinary event.
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, racially and politically motivated riots took place in Great Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and other relatively calm and prosperous countries.
Therefore, if it is quiet outside your window now, no one is shooting, robbing shops and setting fire to cars — everything can change faster than you think.
Thanks to information technology, the world has become very fragile.
In order for the crowd to take to the streets and begin to sweep away everything in its path, no charismatic leader, no ideological pumping, no careful work of the revolutionary underground is no longer needed.
One post in social media that has received "viral" coverage is enough.
When a city reaches what survivalists call SHTF—when riots begin and law enforcement breaks down—the correct response is to leave.
And this is where you least want to draw attention to yourself, be it criminals or the police.
And becoming invisible during riots is as difficult as it is for a chameleon to disguise itself during a forest fire.
If only because all your tactical gear makes you a desirable prey for robbers and a potential threat to the police.
But difficult doesn't mean impossible. Because the concept of the "Gray Man" includes the concept of "urban camouflage", which we will talk about in detail in the pages of this book.